Remember all that nonsense about debt and deficit disasters, budget emergencies and how the Liberals were the only ones capable of managing the economy? What a waste of space Joe Hockey was as treasurer. What a similar waste Scott Morrison is threatening to be.
Next month’s MYEFO is going to tell an interesting story, not the least of which will be to expose those “adults” supposedly back in charge, for the economic fraudsters they are.
For those not paying attention, MYEFO (the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook) is a kind of Actuals versus Estimates exercise that tells us how good or bad we are travelling compared with the budget brought down six months earlier.
What it will tell us is that revenue estimates in the May budget will not be met and that the deficit has blown out further than estimated in the May budget.
Yet it will be against these depressing numbers that these fraudsters running our country’s finances want to bring in tax cuts for the overpaid corporate contributors to their party’s election funds.
Think about that for a minute. Revenue is in decline, the deficit is increasing but Morrison et al are talking about tax cuts. As at today, the Federal Government interest bearing debt is $398 billion (up from $284 billion two years ago) and any ‘credible path back to surplus’ is a mirage. But, make no mistake about it, tax cuts are on the table.
Annual wage growth in the private sector to September was 2.1%, the lowest in the 18 year history of the wage/price index. If we don’t have wages growth we don’t have income tax growth. It’s not rocket science. But Morrison wants to deliver income tax cuts. What he should be promoting is wage increases.
Treasury are already revising their forecasts down for the upcoming MYEFO. Don’t be surprised if the detail isn’t released until two minutes before midnight on Christmas Eve when Santa is sliding down a chimney somewhere and mums and dads haven’t yet counted up all that additional credit card debt they have taken on.
At that point MYEFO will be the furthest thing from their minds, all their attention being absorbed by the festivities. Furthermore, all the politicians will be on a well-earned(?) break and our leading MSM economic editors won’t be able to quiz anyone about the results.
A few weeks later, everyone will be enjoying the summer sun and who will care?
Well, let’s not forget, 2016 is an election year and if we take Malcolm Turnbull’s word that the government will run its full term, another budget will be required in May. Will Scott Morrison still favour tax cuts when the awful truth about revenue dawns on him?
At the moment everybody loves Malcolm Turnbull. Malcolm is even the darling of Labor voters. After two years of Tony Abbott, who wouldn’t be? But a reckoning of sorts must eventually take place and the reality of failed economic supervision under Liberal leadership will become clear even to the most rusted-on conservative.
If Labor wants to restore its fading image it doesn’t have a lot of time and had better start doing something about it now. Its best hope, leadership speculation to one side, is to hammer home the state of the economy and the failed experiment of putting the adults back in charge, because, while everyone loves Malcolm, they will eventually tune in to what affects them most… their hip pocket.
The Liberals played that card relentlessly against Labor in 2013. Now it should be payback time.
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Yes, the clock is certainly ticking for Labor …. as it should be (and actually is) for the COALition government …..
“At the moment everybody loves Malcolm Turnbull
‘…oh no count me out, I have no time for the ‘Emporer with no Clothes’. More I see and hear of the phony the more my dislike. I will never forget ute gate, Gretchgate, the disaster and associated lies of the failed Tory NBN Coppergate, the hundred plus lost jobs and gross cuts to the ABC/SBS…plus the ‘dandy’ type leadership he is wallowing in, all flash suits, manicured nails, Colgate smile…the showman ready to strut the stage.
Meanwhile the imbeciles who are actually running the Govt play merry hell with the nation’s trillion dollar economy. No sir, not a drop of love here.
Yes dont include me as well,and all that glitters is not gold in Turnbulls case.
Tax cuts are the only way these rorting ratbags can think of winning votes at the next election. Oh and that good old standby HEY LOOK OVER THERE A TERRORIST!!!
“The Liberals played that card relentlessly against Labor in 2013. Now it should be payback time.” Totally agree but just how are Labor going to get this issue out to the voting public with the MSM ruled by you know who and overseen by the Liberal party. Maybe Labor could have a cash cow type give away on the Labor Herald.otherwise not much hope for democracy in Australia.
I seriously doubt Scott Morrison will change his attitude towards taxation! Taxation exists as a means to take money from the working class and funnel it into the upper class (in wealth only not in character) so the upper class can magically decide to employ more people, because that’s what they do don’t they? The rich they just trickle more money down to the poor and that makes the world go ’round! Morrison is rat cunning but economically dumb! He will never support wage growth or job creation because he doesn’t understand it. Morrison will finish what Hockey started and will work assiduously to push us over the recession cliff. He is incapable of anything else!
Bowen needs to explain why supply side economices is not working in terms working people can understand (like you do John) and keep drumming home the point that the Libs have got it catastrophically wrong! Keep repeating the message that we are headed for recession and as the coalition is just doing the same old stuff there will be no brake on that journey!
The msm and particularly Murdoch owned media are the only reason we have a coalition government.
What is needed is a grass roots campaign to educate the masses about political parties and their ideology. People need to be informed about who each party represents so they are able to make an informed choice when they go to vote.
The msm and especially, the sham that is News Limited needs to be held accountable for spreading lies and misinformation.
The only way forward that I can see ..is to; ..Not vote Liberal; ..Not vote Labor; ..Not vote Nationals ..and this will send the BASTARDS a message 😡
Three years off the teat and out of the trough ( and longer for Senators) may give them pause to think about ‘We the People’ !!!!
….. or to put it another (simplified) way :- “Ricky Muir for President”…..no really 🙂
spot on, John, but Abbutt could not have won without labor voters being frightened of the boats and the debt and voting for them.
Labor lay down in 2013 on the economy to fight the lemon’s grass fires(fanned by the coalition and various loonies through the media) this capitulation allowed the economic and carbon price lies to blossom and be re-inforced day after day till they were fixed in the mind of workers.(the ones whose jobs robb has given to the chinese).
Unless little billy has a grassroots plan to show malcolm’s wasted borrowings and economic mismanagement plus has the guts to hammer LABOR’S AAA economy it is likely the labor’s debt crisis will surface and the copperman is home with the only pluses being that a xenophon will beat pyne and little billy will fade into obscurity with a big job from the grateful turnball.
ps there are 100s of office windows in shopping centres that could be used for diplaying simple figures about costs to US.
In big letters ‘ if your food bill costs $60 it will $69 after the election in BIG easily read letters. Then next week if your chemist bill is $80 it will be $92 after the election. Then To save us from the GFC labor’s debt was xxxx it is now xxxx day after day week after week reassure us the lib boys are crap but please please please go for robb and andrews they are the weak links.
With the economy tanking, and ready to take a nose-dive next year, maybe this election is the one Labor should forget about it. If they get in then they will wear the blame for the recession we didn’t have to have and they will be suck in the wilderness for a very long time.
Best leave this one for the expert economic managers!
Labor should copy the L-NP and do their own budgetary projections based upon the state of the economy when the L-NP came in and demonstrate the clear distinction between rational financial management and austerity suicide. It could be called LIFO Liberal Idiot Financial Obituary. The numbers are there however Labor must fight back with clarity of foresight and stand by the mining tax and emissions trading scheme demonstrating cost benefits and actual CO2 reductions. They should also demonstrate how taxing offshore accounts and expanding the taxation departments staff would have led to more investigations of tax rorts. Then provide a list of taxation alternatives and reduction in corporate welfare to head towards the mythical balanced budget. Don’t let them know the deficit is a myth play them at their own game. Scare the crap out of the public by spelling out doom and gloom under a deficit wielding government of hubris and lies. The deficit figures could then be tied to the madness of proposed corporate tax reductions further adding to the deficit. Labor hold all the cards the point is do they have the courage to play them or is Mr Snooze going to get caught up in the neo-con supply side nonsense. Too much to hope they would grab onto MMT to challenge this idiot orthodoxy.
Apart from the fact that Andrews is now a Labor ‘ally’, in the sense he, like Abbott, is desperately trying to destabilise Turnbull, the idea of focussing on the ‘weak links’ has merit.
Well remember the Goss years when the Opposition focussed on Goss but to no long-term political effect. He was unassailable. They forgot about the many ‘weak links’ in his Cabinet, the demise of same would’ve (indirectly) wounded Goss.
So it is with Turnbull. He is immune from frontal assault(s). At least for the present. So don’t waste Question Time on him. Focus on the ‘weak links’. At least for the immediate future
Labor wasted most of Question Time today by attempting to make points re the increase to GST which were easily batted away. It was only at the death did they throw a few questions to Mal Brough (which he basically refused to answer). There were no questions for Wyatt Roy about his involvement in ‘Ashbygate’ and none for Pyne and his involvement.
There’s a ‘scandal’ there and it involves Turnbull and his ‘judgement’. It’s his ‘judgement’ or lack of same that is his weakness. You have to wound him indirectly.
No I ‘suspect’, the ALP political strategist read this site for ideas so I look forward to tomorrow’s ‘tactics’. Knowing full well that ‘strategy’ is beyond them.
“What he should be promoting is wage increases.”
Why is it so hard for people to see the bleeding obvious? When people cannot afford to spend money the economy suffers and doing a Harvey Norman and lending them money to spend compounds the problem.
David. You forgot the cloud seeding.
John kelly – yes good article
Although as an MMT follower I am more inclined to think that there are three ways the economy can expand
(1) Government spending
(2) Tax cuts; and
(3) a combination of (1) & (2.
Of course the efficacy is dependent on how targetted the expansion is directed, and there lies the the incompetance of whom ever is in government.
As for Labor – they talk as if they are none the wiser
Count me out – I can see Turnbull for the snake he is. I hold no affection or even grudging tolerance for him.
David – you also forgot Turnbull’s involvement in environmentally, socially and politically disastrous logging in the Soloman Isalnds. When questioned about it he lied. Of course.
Turnbull build a part of his wealth from the destruction of Vella La Vella Island
http://pacwantokinternational.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/pro-logger-in-solomon-islands-becomes.html
http://www.solomontimes.com/news/a-former-logger-becomes-australian-federal-opposition-leader/2632
Always amazed the Australian public are so easily fooled into being bled to subsidise big business, the increase in taxes esp GST will affect those who earn the least, the tax-cuts handed out will be as always to those individuals and big business who profit the most (indeed if they can reduce their tax to less than nought or the few dollars they ‘legally’ have to pay now)… So maybe Malcolm and co, forget taking up the collection plate from the poor to give to the wealthy, otherwise these ‘adults’ in charge aren’t working to a surplus, because frankly most ‘workers’ have nothing left to give… How easily fooled are we by gutter press and mass media after internal mutiny and back stabbing, this political party led by a big smile and expensive suit is no different to that the public hated and finally saw was dismantling everything that was great in this country to privatise for mates/companies/foreign interests with the $$ to buy our assets, and at the same time blowing the deficit into the nightmare category, promises and the ‘dream’ they sold of surplus forgotten by a public that seems to have chronic short term memory loss 🙁
leonetwo…I wasn’t aware of Turnbull’s involvement in the disgusting logging in the Soloman Island. So it is obvious he is a snakeoil sales man who not only is a liar, a required attribute but a component in the destruction of the world’s forests, he is in fact an environmental terrorist. So many torpedoes for the opposition to fire yet their tubes are empty.
If only Labor had been on the front foot this entire time, they’d be in a much better position now.
Sadly they felt there was no way the public would oust a first term government, so they decided to completely write off the next election and win back some seats by not ruffling any feathers and generally staying out of the way and leaving the public to focus entirely on Abbott and his failings. Then when Shorten inevitably loses, he steps down and gets a pat on the back for doing his job and putting them in a winnable position for 2019 and then the new long term Labor leader goes on the attack and the Abbott government is humiliated in 2019.
Abbott was far more destructive than Labor could ever have imagined though. The Libational government were forced to do the only thing they could do and despite the hard core right wing voters moaning about ‘lefty’ Turnbull, dumping Abbott has strengthened their position. Because Shorten’s Labor just sat back and made no waves, they are not in a fit state to bring down Turnbull. If only they’d decided to fight from day 1, they’d now have the credibility and the momentum to take on even Turnbull.
David not only has Turnbull invested in companies that engage in wide scale environmental destruction he’s invested in nasty vulture funds that are deliberately sending small countries into massive debt to reap profits whilst leaving behind wide spread poverty, misery and countries that can never recover without debt relief.
Turnbull is a very acidulous piece of work.
@Mobius Ecko…thanks for that info, is there anywhere on the public record I can get a list of those companies? Since my post yesterday Senator Sue Lines went on the attack yesterday in the Senate over Turnbull’s devious investments, exposing one he rushed to add to his register after it was discovered, heaping howls of abuse on her from the bullying sexist Govt led by that loud mouthed idiot Sen McDonald.
I would like to pass on any information regarding Turnbull’s sneaky investments to Sue, she is one Labor rep not afraid to call a spade a spade and is not deterred by the louts in the Government.
Thanks for your assistance.
While we are discussing Turnbull, under his PMship it appears he is as we suspect, no better than Abbott in many respects as the sudden disappearance with a no comment re the Asylum Seeker boat discovered off Christmas Island few days ago confirms.
After the Navy towed it back to open water, it has…’disappeared’ completely. Nothing on radar, never existed.
What makes it more disgusting and frankly inhumane, today Turnbull and that slimeball Dutton have both been proclaiming how essential it is women and children must be protected from abuse. The hypocrisy is beyond me.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/nov/25/christmas-island-asylum-seeker-boat-disappeared-after-being-towed-by-navy
I certainly don’t. Malcolm Turnbullsh*t is all style and no substance,dumped knights and dames. But still other crap policies. Just being promoted by the Libs MSM, and the gullible masses falling for it.